Signals

Amsterdam – The 25-year-old photography institute Foam has unveiled a new visual identity by Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam, marking the first time it has used a brand system rooted in motion. The redesign aims to reflect Foam’s evolution from a museum into a global platform spanning print, digital and talent development. 

Foam’s previous identity, created by Vandejong, ‘has remained strong, but Foam’s positioning has evolved alongside social changes and the shifting photography landscape’, says Irene Bakker, Foam’s head of marketing and communications. Wieden+Kennedy’s task, explains design director Alex Thursby-Pelham, ‘was to join the dots between all platforms… so Foam could be more visible without detracting from the photography’. 

Motion became central to the redesign, but not as ornamentation. Lead motion designer Sohyeon Nam says the team focused on ‘creating a digital voice to pause and truly see’ building a language defined by ‘resistance, friction, tension, angular shifts and pause’. Sound design reinforces this sensibility with subtle rhythmic shifts that echo ‘layered, diverse perspectives’, adds sound creative Miray van der Bend. 

The refreshed system retains Foam’s Monument logotype, introduces new type pairings and applies restrained but precise layout changes, including a subtle cut in the ‘a’, a detail Thursby-Pelham calls ‘a lexible alignment tool’ that anchors the identity across print, digital and spatial contexts. 

The refreshed system retains Foam’s Monument logotype, introduces new type pairings and applies restrained but precise layout changes. This includes a subtle cut in the ‘a’ which Thursby-Pelham calls ‘a lexible alignment tool’ that anchors the identity across print, digital and spatial contexts. 

To understand the wider cultural context behind this new visual identity, read our macrotrend report The Synthocene Era: Merging Human and Machine Intelligence, which examines how hybrid human–machine design systems are reshaping visual identities.